Background
Advancements in computer performance and chess engine development have culminated in virtually all users of online chess sites having the means to access engine play far superior to that of even the world's strongest players. Some users employ engine assistance while in play, despite this being considered cheating in most cases. To combat this, the most prominent online chess platforms, Chess.com and Lichess, devote significant resources to detecting and handling cheaters, and cheaters employ methods of evading detection, such as cheating only occasionally, in turn.
It is often impossible to determine with absolute certainty whether a player is cheating. Chess sites typically scrutinize multiple games in their analyses of prospective cheaters to limit false positives, but they still rarely occur. Ways of dealing with detected cheaters include permanent but appealable bans, used by Chess.com, and secretly matchmaking cheaters with each other, used by Lichess.
Titled players, even grandmasters, have been caught cheating online. Cheaters have also been found in online tournaments with cash prizes, such as Titled Tuesday, despite these tournaments implementing rigorous and intrusive anti-cheating measures. Accusations of online cheating have been levied between titled players, including by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Both Chess.com and Lichess forbid players from receiving any outside assistance for their play in rated games (with the exception of correspondence games, in which opening repertoires may be referred to). [1] [2] Despite this, some players refer to engines while in play, giving them an unfair advantage over their opponents. In 2022, it was estimated that the world's strongest chess engine, Stockfish, which is free and open source, could be expected to beat the world's strongest human player, Magnus Carlsen, in 98% of games. [3] For ordinary chess players, prone to inaccuracies and blunders, defeating engine assisted play is only possible if and when cheaters make mistakes, if and when they decide not to use engine assistance.
Roughly 0.6% of Chess.com accounts have been closed for cheating. Chess.com claims to have analyzed 2.5 million games in 2023, and to have banned one million accounts for cheating that same year. [4]
Lichess claims that it handled 91,000 reports for cheating in 2022 and 93,000 in 2023, and that it flagged 61,000 and 72,000 accounts for cheating in those two years, respectively; it's unclear how many of the flagged accounts were also reported. [5]
Chess sites employ numerous tracking and analytical methods in their attempts to accurately detect cheaters. [6] Lichess maintains an open source machine learning tool for cheating detection, [7] but does not disclose whether it relies on other, closed source tools. While most cheaters are obvious enough to be detected automatically, more difficult cases require human analysis. [8] Speaking for Chess.com, International Master Danny Rensch has claimed that the site only conducts bans it is "willing to go to court" over. [9] [10]
Chess.com and Lichess differ in how they handle accounts they determine to be cheating. Chess.com publicly issues permanent bans, visible as a crossed red circle icon next to the names of banned users. [1] In addition, the site refunds the rating points of players who have recently lost games to banned accounts. [11] In contrast, Lichess tends to secretly place detected cheaters in a separate playing pool, which prevents cheaters from knowing when they have been caught. [12] Chess.com and Lichess both allow detected cheaters to appeal their ban statuses. [13] Of roughly 39,000 appeals processed by Chess.com in 2023, about 0.3% were granted. [4]
Cheaters can be hard to catch. [14]
In games against cheaters, players may feel hopeless or frustrated. Unwitting opponents of cheaters commonly feel that all of their plans and ideas are being seen through with ease, which may reduce the level of confidence they have in their play. Players have been found to play more poorly when they believe they have faced a cheater, even in subsequent games against legitimate players. [15] [16]
Paranoia is a common response to real and perceived widespread cheating. Players may be accused of cheating for trivial reasons, such as for having a high accuracy score on a single game. A study conducted by grandmaster David Smerdon that matched players against both legitimate players and cheaters and rewarded or penalized them based on how accurately they appraised their opponents found that players correctly judged their opponents 68.75% of the time. 30% of cheaters were correctly judged, and 83% of non-cheaters were correctly acquitted. The study also asked players to rate how confident they were in their judgements; the three most confident cheating accusations were against non-cheaters. [15] [16] The belief that many of one's opponents are cheating is thought to have driven some players to begin cheating themselves. [3]
Cheating has been observed at the master level. Of the 550,000 account closures for cheating conducted by Chess.com up to 2022, 550 were on accounts verified to be owned by titled players. [8] 165 out of the roughly 1 million accounts closed by Chess.com for cheating in 2023 were titled; of these, 20 were grandmaster accounts. [4]
Chess.com mandates intrusive anti-cheating methods in prize money tournaments it hosts. Tournament players may be expected to join a Zoom call with an open mic and one or more cameras to record live feeds of their room and/or screen, and to send the feed(s) to Chess.com at a moment's notice. [4] Players may also be asked to "sweep" their rooms with a camera, show the running processes on their computer, [17] not wear headphones, and to show their computer's display settings. [4] Streamers may be required to apply broadcast delay, and to set their stream chats to emote only (unless they can prove they cannot see it and they are authorized not to).
In December 2024, Chess.com announced their intentions to replace their use of Zoom calls in prize money events with their new monitoring program, Proctor. The program consists of a browser with tracking features attached, and Chess.com reports that it monitors players' screens, running programs, and camera and audio feeds. In their announcement post, Chess.com compares Proctor to exam software to emphasize the relative necessity of its use. Proctor will not be required outside of prize events. [18]
Despite these measures, cheaters are still occasionally found in online prize events. Titled Tuesday is one. [19] In one prominent case, grandmaster Wesley So accused fellow grandmaster Tigran L. Petrosian of cheating against him in the 2020 PRO Chess League; Petrosian countered by accusing So of "doing PIPI [sic] in [his] pampers when [Petrosian] was beating players much more stronger [sic] then [sic] [him]". [20] Chess.com determined Petrosian to have cheated, and he was permanently banned from the site. [21]
Vladimir Kramnik, former World Chess Champion, has accused numerous titled Chess.com users of cheating in online games. Starting in November 2023, he has alleged that chess streamer and grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura was cheating online. In particular, Kramnik pointed to a 46 game unbeaten streak achieved by Hikaru as something "everyone would find interesting". [22] However, Hikaru entered losing positions on multiple occasions within the streak. Statisticians have analyzed Hikaru's games, and have come to conflicting conclusions. [23] Chess.com analyzed the streak, and reported that its occurrence was "not only possible, but likely given the number of games played". [24]
Computer chess includes both hardware and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysis, entertainment and training. Computer chess applications that play at the level of a chess grandmaster or higher are available on hardware from supercomputers to smart phones. Standalone chess-playing machines are also available. Stockfish, Leela Chess Zero, GNU Chess, Fruit, and other free open source applications are available for various platforms.
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the 14th undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007.
Tigran Vardani Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster and the ninth World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasized safety above all else. Petrosian is often credited with popularizing chess in Armenia.
In chess, there are a number of ways that a game can end in a draw, neither player winning. Draws are codified by various rules of chess including stalemate, threefold repetition, and the fifty-move rule. Under the standard FIDE rules, a draw also occurs in a dead position, most commonly when neither player has sufficient material to checkmate the opponent.
ChessBase is a German company that develops and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates an internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells large-scale databases containing the moves of recorded chess games. The databases contain data from prior games and provide engine analyses of games. Endgame tablebases are also provided by the company.
Christopher Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess grandmaster, streamer, YouTuber, five-time U.S. Chess Champion, and the reigning World Fischer Random Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he earned his grandmaster title at the age of 15, the youngest American at the time to do so. With a peak rating of 2816, Nakamura is the tenth-highest-rated player in history.
Several methods have been suggested for comparing the greatest chess players in history. There is agreement on a statistical system to rate the strengths of current players, called the Elo system, but disagreement about methods used to compare players from different generations who never competed against each other
Cheating in chess is a deliberate violation of the rules of chess or other behaviour that is intended to give an unfair advantage to a player or team. Cheating can occur in many forms and can take place before, during, or after a game. Commonly cited instances of cheating include: collusion with spectators or other players, use of chess engines during play, rating manipulation, and violations of the touch-move rule. Many suspiciously motivated practices are not comprehensively covered by the rules of chess.
Wesley Barbasa So is a Filipino and American chess grandmaster, a three-time U.S. Chess Champion, and the first World Fischer Random Chess Champion. He is also a three-time Philippine Chess Champion. On the March 2017 FIDE rating list, he was ranked number two in the world and had an Elo rating of 2822, making him the fifth-highest-rated player in history.
This article documents the progress of significant human–computer chess matches.
Tigran Levoni Petrosian is an Armenian chess player who holds the title of grandmaster, which FIDE awarded him in 2004. A two-time national champion, he competed in two Chess Olympiads, winning team gold in 2008 and 2012.
Dmitry Vladimirovich Andreikin is a Russian chess grandmaster, World Junior Chess Champion in 2010 and two-time Russian Chess Champion. He won the Tashkent leg of FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15 and finished runners-up in Chess World Cup 2013 and Belgrade leg of FIDE Grand Prix 2022.
Chess.com is an internet chess server and social networking website. One of the largest chess platforms in the world, the site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be played against other users in daily, rapid, blitz or bullet time controls, with a number of chess variants available. Chess versus a chess engine, computer analysis, chess puzzles and teaching resources are offered.
Lichess is a free and open-source Internet chess server run by a non-profit organization of the same name. Users of the site can play online chess anonymously and optionally register an account to play rated games. Lichess is ad-free and all the features are available for free, as the site is funded by donations from patrons. Features include chess puzzles, computer analysis, tournaments and chess variants.
Gaioz Nigalidze is a Georgian chess player. He was awarded the title International Master by FIDE in 2009. In 2014, he was also awarded the title Grandmaster, but it was revoked in 2015 for cheating using electronic devices that were hidden in a bathroom.
The Dubai Open Chess Tournament, also known as the Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Cup, is an annual open chess tournament in Dubai, UAE that is usually held in April. First held in 1999 by the Dubai Chess and Culture Club with the aim of giving exposure to young talent in UAE, the Dubai Open Chess Tournament is today one of the most well-known and strongest open tournaments in the world. The inaugural event in 1999 was won by chess grandmaster Vladimir Akopian. The 18th edition of the Dubai Open Chess Tournament was held from April 11–19, 2016, at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club. It was won by British grandmaster Gawain Jones, who also ruled the Dubai Open Blitz Cup 2016.
Andrew Tang is an American chess grandmaster. He is also a popular streamer, known online for his speed chess skills especially in bullet, hyperbullet, and ultrabullet time controls as well as for playing speed chess blindfolded.
Online chess is chess that is played over the Internet, allowing players to play against each other. This was first done asynchronously through PLATO and email in the 1970s. In 1992, the Internet Chess Server facilitated live online play via telnet, and inspired several other telnet-based systems around the world. Web-based platforms became popular in the 2010s and grew considerably amid the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside a trend of livestreaming chess.
During the Sinquefield Cup in September 2022, a controversy arose involving the chess grandmasters Magnus Carlsen, then world champion, and Hans Niemann. Carlsen, after surprisingly losing in their third-round matchup, dropped out of the tournament. Many interpreted his withdrawal as Carlsen tacitly accusing Niemann of having cheated. In their next tournament meetup, an online tournament, Carlsen abruptly resigned after one move, perplexing observers again. It became the most serious scandal about cheating allegations in chess in years, and it garnered significant attention in the news media worldwide.
"20 Years Later, Humans Still No Match For Computers On The Chessboard". NPR. October 24, 2016.
"Chess.com: Hans Niemann Report". Google Drive . Chess.com. October 4, 2022.